


Vasaad

by LilacSolanum



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alcohol, M/M, Night Terrors, PTSD, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Re-Education, past relationship parallels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-09
Updated: 2020-04-09
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:55:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23553400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LilacSolanum/pseuds/LilacSolanum
Summary: Qunari love was to be quiet and calm, and the lovers understood that their situations could change. To honor love above all else was for thebas, who were all flushed with untempered passion, and always suffering at its whims.
Relationships: Iron Bull/Dorian Pavus
Comments: 17
Kudos: 107





	Vasaad

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to [Cavatica](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cavatica) and [Catie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/c_rowles/) for the beta. I am an utter mess without them.

There are no relationships under the Qun. That doesn’t mean there is not love, and the priests are not unkind. If love could be preserved, it would be preserved. 

Two chefs could be found holding hands on the Par Vollen docks at sunset. A shoemaker picked flowers for a guard. A metalsmith would make trips out to the fields to see a certain farmer. These things were known, and thought of fondly. 

Yet the chefs knew chefs were often called to the  _ tamassrans  _ and left in service to  _ imekari _ and  _ imekari _ alone. The city guard could be sent to a different settlement, and the shoemaker would be left alone. The metalsmith knew if his work suffered, he would no longer be allowed to go to the fields. 

Qunari love was to be quiet and calm, and the lovers understood that their situations could change. To honor love above all else was for the  _ bas, _ who were all flushed with untempered passion, and always suffering at its whims.

When love was found in the  _ ben-hassrath,  _ it was a hurried thing, panicked and greedy, because  _ ben-hassrath _ were far sharper tools than chefs or farmers. They were carefully crafted to be anyone, go anywhere. They trained with weapons until no place on their hands was soft, they were taught the  _ basra _ language until their tongues fumbled between Qunlat and Baslat. A  _ ben-hassrath _ went as the Qun demanded. What the Qun demanded of a  _ ben-hassrath _ was rarely ever easy.

Hissrad met Vasaad in his fourth year on Seheron. He didn’t think much of him at first, except to note that he was pretty. Vasaad was as tall as Hissrad but more lean, all slink and smirk. He was small enough to feel safe to humans, qunari enough to entice the ones with a curiosity, and made  _ alok-aqun _ for the many soldiers with a taste for a woman’s shape. The beautiful  _ ben-hassrath _ were designed to slip secrets from between warm sheets. He wondered how Vasaad found himself on Seheron, rather than sent undercover to tempt. It seemed a waste, to allow ugly scars on his smooth skin.

Hissrad learned, later, that Vasaad was sent to Seheron for his anger.

It didn’t begin in battle. It revealed itself in their down time. Some members of their kith would sneak away from Sten for cards and cups, because even qunari needed release, and the stress trained _tamassrans_ stationed on Seheron were limited.

On this night, Asaaranda and Vasaad were both  _ basra  _ drunk. Asaaranda won, and boasted too proudly, as he was apt to do in jest. Vashaad was up at once, yelling with clenched fists. Hissrad pulled Vasaad away. He got him to talk about what upset him. Hissrad listened patiently to his ranting for an hour in the dry Seheron night, growing more concerned with every turn Vasaad took. 

Vasaad had let Serehon boil the waters of his mind, and they churned violently beneath his duty to the Qun. Hissrad reminded him of their purpose, and had him breathe through his rage. Hissrad could let the horrors of Seheron wash away with the tide (and back then, so early in his deployment, he could believe that lie.) 

They sat side-by-side until the sky went from black to a pale daybreak blue. They walked back to the base without the pretense of secrecy. Sten knew what his kith did after the braziers were snuffed. He didn’t say anything, because they all survived Seheron in whatever way they could.

Vasaad became attached to Hissrad, and Hissrad liked having an attachment. Being strong for Vasaad made him feel strong, and he told himself he would not crack as long as Vasaad needed him to stay together. Eventually, they started to sleep together. Sex outside the  _ tamassrans _ was mostly frowned upon, because sex was an emotionally and physically dangerous act that ought to be done under qualified supervision. But on Seheron, there was an unspoken encouragement. Stay steady however you can. The ones who don’t find a release become  _ tal-vashoth.  _ Hissrad and Vasaad clung to each other and called it sanity, and that was stability enough.

Vasaad was yielding and obedient. Vasaad had been trained to tempt and tease and mold his wants to others’, but _ this  _ was the way of his heart. Vasaad relished in doing what he was told, bloomed when praised, and easily gave way to commands. He served Hissrad as Hissrad served him. 

Hissrad had learned knots from the  _ tamassrans _ trained to soothe physical wants _ , _ and he perfected them against Vasaad, who knelt before him and took the ties with his head bowed. It was a ritual, a meditation, a soothing oasis they found only in each other.

It was Vasaad’s third year and Hissrad’s seventh when their balance fell apart.

Vasaad served the Qun, even if he sometimes seethed about orders when he and Hissrad snuck away. But slowly, slowly, he began to push against the demands. 

At first, it started by not retreating when he should, throwing in an extra swing to an already dead man, one last kick at a broken body as he left the battle. That turned into sneaking away at night, and finding targets off the battlefield, waiting until they slept, murdering them dishonorably. Once, he killed a prisoner when she was meant to be alive. He said it was a miscalculation, but Hissrad knew Vasaad. Vasaad did not miscalculate.

He began to rush into battle, to leave battles when he grew bored, to fight with fists against weapons as if he wanted to get hurt. If Hissrad repeated Sten’s orders, Vasaad would listen, but that quickly ceased to work.

Once he’d rushed in before the order was given. Afterward, Hissrad pulled him aside, still covered in the muck of war, angrier than he’d ever been.

“Stop this shit,” he growled. “Now. Before they turn you into the priests. You wanna drink  _ qamek _ ? You wanna be  _ maraasbas,  _ pick elfroot with an  _ arvaarad _ reminding you to eat and piss?”

Vasaad shrugged in response, dull-eyed and defeated. “So turn me in.”

Hissrad didn’t.

Sten split the kith up for a raid on a Venatori base. One group was to attack from the back, while the other led an ambush at the front. Hissrad was put in charge of the ambush.

Vasaad was under his command.

Vasaad did not come back.

The priests told him Vasaad had been a mistake. They told him the kith had gotten a new _sten_ after what happened between the two of them, because Sten never should have let it go so far. It was okay to be fond, but not okay to be attached. He and Vasaad had never been in love. They had been in need.

Hissrad listened, and nodded, and his lips were too numb from the droplet of qamek to know that he was drooling. He spent two weeks in reeducation, and he left it knowing two things.

He would bow to the demands of the Qun.

He would not fall in need again.

——

When Bull first met Dorian Pavus, he thought of Vasaad. They both wielded themselves deftly, using their beauty as a shield. Bull was wary of him at first. He was a ‘Vint claiming he was against the Venatori, but was leading them into the den of a Venatori. It was a classic trap, and Lavellan was too new to war, hadn’t learned not to trust.

It quickly became apparent Dorian was no tool sharpened to infiltrate. He was all books and equations, always in his own head, quiet when not commanding attention. He could charm, yes, but he wasn’t observant enough to manipulate.

But oh, did he remind him of Vasaad those first few weeks, captivating the camp with witty comebacks and a perfect smile. 

He had not thought of Vasaad in many years. He laid awake in his tent, haunted by the hole in the sky, wishing Vasaad still needed him, could distract him from his thoughts. The memories were supposed to be soured by the mind-numbing potions, but they persisted all the same. He’d known that morning that something was off about Vasaad, he should have held him back, he shouldn’t have let him come at all, he should have, he should have, he should have—

He hadn’t.

Dorian spent the next few months needling Bull into an altercation. Bull had had enough wartime bonds on Seheron to know you hated the whole, not the individual, but Dorian had never learned that lesson in Qarinus. Bull allowed it, figuring Dorian would burn himself out. 

It worked, and Dorian started to trust them the night after the Vinsomer died.

The battle had been brutal but bracing, and warranted the  _ marass-lok _ Bull had been brewing since he got to Skyhold. It wasn’t the same, pears rather than lemons, but it burned just as harshly. The burn was the point. The burn was the Seheron of it all, the grief-tinged nostalgia, the rare memories of easy and uncomplicated wins.

Dorian appeared in the tavern after Lavellan had left. She was already half asleep after just a few sips, and Varric was taking her to her quarters. Elves were terrible at drinking, except for Gatt.

He realized, with a distant sort of surprise, that he hadn’t thought of Gatt in years. The Qun existed in letters and drop points now, not people, not places. That faded with every round of drinks with Krem, every artless tavern fuck that was indulgence rather than necessary.

He found himself wondering when he’d last drunk  _ maraas-lok _ with Vasaad. He pushed the thought away.

Dorian was wearing some kind of ‘Vint tunic, pale yellow, covered in buckles and belts, and baring half of his chest. An Orlesian noble family and their retinue had arrived at the same time Lavellan’s people had, and Lavellan’s caravans had been filled with dragon skins and wyvern scales. It had made quite an impression. Josephine couldn’t be happier. All of Skyhold was in a great mood, and Dorian had probably gotten gussied up to take a man back to his room.

Bull waved him down before Dorian could find a mark, because he was elated and drunk. “Dorian!  _ Ataash saarebas! _ Drink this!”

Bull slid the mug over to Dorian with far too much force. Dorian just barely caught it before it fell off the edge of the table. He picked it up and looked at it curiously.

Cremisius snorted before Dorian could react. “Go ahead, altus. Take a sip,” he said.

“It tastes like a nug drank mabari piss and then that nug pissed out that piss, then left it in the sun for a week,” said Stitches. “Awful stuff.”

“Hmm,” said Dorian. He sniffed it and sneered. “Ah. An  _ eau de vie. _ ” He swirled the mug as if it were some fancy Orlesian glass. “What lovely viscosity. Do I detect notes of orange peel and sourdough?”

“You better not,” said Bull.

Dorian looked at the drink, rolled his eyes, and knocked it back. The Chargers waited.

Dorian, very primly, set the mug down and raised an elegant eyebrow at Bull. “Well,” he said. “I can’t say I’ve had worse, but I have had stronger.”

A cheer rose from the Chargers. “Andraste preserve me,” said Dorian, hiding a smile. He pushed the  _ marass-lok _ back to Bull. Bull pushed it back.

“That’s yours now, ‘Vint,” said Bull, pushing it back. Dorian grimaced. “Two warriors sharing  _ maraas-lok _ is a time honored tradition!”

“Do you hate me so?”

“C’mon! You said it yourself. Eau de— whatever,” Bull said. 

Dorian sighed and sat down, barely suppressed amusement clear in his expression. “I suppose I cannot say no to a free spirit, even one made of giant’s breath and Fallow Mire mud.”

“Ugh. Creepy ass demons,” said Bull, tilting back in his chair. “Felt good to fuck up some Avvar, though. Pretty badass guys. Big, for humans.”

“ _ How _ big, Chief?” asked Krem, nudging him with his elbow. 

“Never got a chance to find out,” said Bull. “We gotta find some that don’t wanna kill us. You think the Boss will let us go to the mountains?”

“For such an honorable and holy mission? Oh yes, I’m sure we’ll have her full support,” said Dorian.

He pulled out a chair and sat down, surprising Bull. They’d managed to distract him from his Orlesian-inspired mission, at least for a little while. Bull felt proud. He’d won over the rest of Lavellan’s team, in spite of the  _ ben-hassrath _ of it all. His instinct to just wait on Dorian had been right. 

Hours later, after Krem convinced him to go upstairs, and supervised the climb, Bull wondered how Vasaad would have looked fighting a dragon. 

His dreams were scattered fistfuls of Vasaad, scenes from a never-reality where his death was a lie and he had joined the Inquisition. There was a brief moment between sleep and wakefulness where Bull still believed the dream. When he forced his dry eyes open against the angry morning sun, the truth hit him all at once. 

It was worse than a nightmare.

It didn’t take long until Dorian started to come to his room, halting at first, ashamed at his open desire for a qunari, and wary of open desire at all. Soon it became a weekly event, then twice weekly, then sometimes more.

There had been a Charger who had warmed Bull’s bed more than once, a man with an adorably flat nose Bull called Nuggy. He had looked at him as Vasaad had, with blatant need, and Bull gently told him they had to stop. He remembered what the priests had said, and recognized his response to that need, his own urge to soothe Nuggy. Bull was a  _ sten _ now, and he was responsible for stopping such things before they got ugly. 

Nuggy left the Chargers soon after. 

Bull didn’t have any of these concerns with Dorian. Dorian was independent to a fault, he could even hurt himself with his own stubbornness. That was why Bull let him come back again and again, even after he started leaving little things in Bull’s room for convenience, even after he started to spend the night. 

A part of him, the part that still felt the reeducator’s cuffs on his wrists, knew he should stop it, but the rest of him thought it was harmless. It was fun. Dorian got to sweat out his inner bullshit for a few hours, and Bull got to watch him do it. Everyone won.

Then there was the night he awoke facing a wall in his room, his hands in fists.

Nothing registered to him at first. He didn’t remember his dream, but he didn’t recognize his surroundings. He leaned his forehead against the cold stone wall, breathing slowly, trying to let reality come to him at its own pace, rather than search for it and end up confusing himself more.

He heard Dorian speak, softly. “Bull?” Bull stiffened at the sound. He’d forgotten Dorian had slept in his room to avoid the freezing weather.

He pushed himself away from the wall and turned around slowly. “I didn’t—”

“No,” said Dorian firmly. “You thought you were trapped. Thankfully, you’d quite forgotten about doors, and were trying to punch through the wall instead. Always a problem solver.” Dorian attempted a smile. Bull couldn’t return it.

Bull sat down on his bed. He stared at his knuckles numbly. They were bloodied. “Sorry,” he muttered, not sure what else to say. This agitated dreaming happened from time to time. It was new to Skyhold. Something about having a long-term room got to him. Bull figured it didn’t harm anyone but him. He told himself he’d tell Stitches if he ended up on the parapets. 

He hadn’t connected the sleepwalking with Dorian staying overnight.

Dorian sat next to him, keeping a careful space between them. “Don’t apologize. May I?” he asked, his hands glowing green and floating above Bull’s own. Bull was too numb to protest. Dorian cast his spell, and it left Bull’s skin feeling too tight and itchy. The spell didn’t get rid of the blood.

“Can I get you anything?” said Dorian, so full of gentle concern that an ache formed in Bull’s heart.

“I’m good,” Bull said.

“Are you sure? Felix used to burst into my rooms at night, screaming,” said Dorian. “The fever, you see. He always wanted something sweet after.”

A part of him wanted to say  _ shit, yeah, that sounds perfect, the cooks are probably in the kitchens by now, maybe got some fresh tarts already. Tell them it’s for me, _ but he stayed silent. The request felt forbidden, too precious, a luxury meant for someone else.

Bull neatly tucked away his anxiety and stood back up, pouring himself a glass of water from the pitcher he kept in his room.

“Nah,” he said. “Just a dream. Sucks that I woke you up.”

“I’ll manage,” Dorian said softly.

Dorian walked over to Bull and reached out as if to touch him. Bull’s eye trained on Dorian’s hand. It hovered in the air for a moment, then fell back to his side. Dorian must have seen an unspoken rejection in Bull’s look. Bull had probably put it there; habitually  _ ben-hassrath _ , always  _ ben-hassrath _ . Bow to the Qun. Don’t let a Tevinter  _ altus _ know the extent of your fear. A ‘Vint could take his need for comfort and use it against him. Bull had to keep it to himself.

It wasn’t just any ‘Vint, of course. It was Dorian. But Bull was very, very well trained, and he was the tool the Qun had made him.

Bull set his water glass down, slowly, as to not betray the shake in his hands and the quickness of his breath. He found himself wishing Dorian had freaked out, and had been the one who needed soothing. Bull knew how to do that. He didn’t know how to ask Dorian to touch him after all.

“Will you be going back to bed?” asked Dorian, as if nothing had happened between them.

“Probably not,” said Bull. “Too wired. You can stay here, if you want.”

“That’d be a bit odd, would it not?” asked Dorian. 

Bull thought,  _ why? You sleep in all the time. I just leave you here. _ Bull wanted to go beat the shit out of a training dummy, and the idea that Dorian was warm in his bed would be a comfort.

“It’s up to you,” said Bull.

Dorian looked at Bull’s door, then back at him. “I can help you get back to sleep, if you’d like.”

“No,” said Bull firmly.

Dorian held out a hand, as if to stop Bull, clearly expecting this response. “Yes, yes, I understand, you’ve only seen such spells weaponized. This would be far less forceful—”

“No,” said Bull again. “Nothing inside my head.”

Dorian rolled his eyes and sighed with exasperation. “I’m—I’m more than a little familiar with uncomfortable dreams. Nearly impossible to sleep after one, is it not? Maker, Bull, I’ll hardly be Tranquilizing you.”

“Yeah. You know what you’re doing. Still no.” _ (Another drop of qamek in a concoction of black lotus and poppy, not enough to hurt, but enough to harm, drink this, again, again.) _

Dorian threw his arms up in the air dramatically. “Well. As you please.” He started to gather his things. “I suppose I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Yeah. See you,” said Bull, grabbing his axe. 

Later that day, as Bull pored over his newest letters, he heard a rustling. He turned around slowly, warily, because while he kept his doors open  _ (locking it fanned the flame of his suspicions, because it was best to let attackers come through the front door, so he knew where they were,)  _ he still reacted to noises with caution.

He saw Cole with a plate of pastries and his eyes going wide at having been caught in the act. Bull swallowed back a sigh, unnerved that Cole knew something about his and Dorian’s middle of the night conversation.

But it was sweet and well-meaning, and the spirit hadn’t possessed anyone yet, so Bull kept an open mind. Bull nodded, said, “Hey, thanks,” and tried not to sound like he was speaking to a cat gifting a dead mouse.

“Careful, cautious, concerned. Don’t show you care too much, or he’ll send you away.” Bull took a slow, careful breath, waiting for the kid to get through it. “It would have made him happy to help. You should let him.”

The words cut into Bull, like everything Cole said. If he’d been sent to Dorian by the  _ ben-hassrath _ , he would have let Dorian soothe him, let him feel needed and important, because people liked to feel that way.

Bull sighed. 

“Maybe next time,” he said. He jerked his head toward the pastries. “Who gave those to you? Violette? You shouldn’t do your whole forgetting trick with her, I saw her making eyes at you the other day.” That was the trick to the kid. Let him speak, then refocus him elsewhere. It worked. Sometimes.

Cole slowly set the plate down on Bull’s desk, and looked very concerned about Bull’s words. “She doesn’t need to make eyes,” he explained to Bull gently. “She already has them.”

His life changed one day in a burst of  _ gaatlok _ and rain, sudden but not sudden, inevitable, shocking in how it shocked him. 

He pretended to celebrate with the Chargers, and only Krem knew he wasn’t really there. He avoided Krem from that night on. Not obviously, not noticeably to anyone else, but Krem could tell. Krem would try to talk, and Bull would volley jokes, dodging and defecting. Eventually, Krem took a step back. He wasn’t giving up on helping Bull process, and even Bull knew that, but he was giving Bull space to mourn his old life on his own.

Dorian came back from Redcliffe a week later, wounded once again by his father, alternating wildly between withdrawing and needing contact. Bull sought him out. He made Dorian go on walks. He kept Dorian out of the tavern and the wine cellar. He focused on Dorian.

He did not mourn.

Lavellan took Bull and Dorian to Adamant, and then to the Fade. For weeks, Bull saw demons in the shadows, and smelled their ichor in his food.

He stopped meditating in the morning, and took to training Cullen’s soldiers instead. Krem noticed the shift and told Bull he didn’t like it. 

One morning, he used too much force, and a man left the training grounds with a broken hand.

Later that evening, Bull sought out Dorian, who was deep in research, and happily busy. The Fade had upset him, but it had also fascinated him, and he was having an easy time moving on. Bull went back to his own room, and continued not to mourn.

The Inquisition heard rumors of Venatori in the desert, and Bull begged to go. He needed to fight something he understood, and he understood Venatori. He was good at taking ‘Vints, and this one in particular needed to die.

Dorian went with them. He had as personal a stake in the ‘Vints as Bull.

But it wasn’t Dorian who ignored an order to retreat to face a shifting, grinning, blood-dripped mage on his own.

Bull knew, somewhere, that he was doing just as Vasaad had done, but knowing didn’t keep him from doing. In that moment, he saw Seheron, because his memories and his violent thoughts were louder since the Storm Coast, and he might as well go down swinging and take an asshole with him.

The room iced over and Bull knew it wasn’t from the Venatori.

Dorian had come back to him. Bull survived.

Bull experienced flashes of consciousness as the Inquisition brought him back to Griffon Wing Keep. He remembered Lavellan barking orders, and being carried through the Approach in a stretcher. He remembered Dorian hovering over him with glowing hands, casting spells that prickled unpleasantly, speaking to Lavellan through clenched teeth. Dorian avoided healing, making a show of disgust at fresh gore, dismissing anyone who pointed out that he was perfectly comfortable with rotted flesh. Bull knew he was compensating for a blind spot in his studies. If Bull was alive, that meant Dorian had been practicing in secret. Dorian was a good man. 

When he finally regained himself, he was in a room of the Keep. Elfroot dried the mouth, and he needed water more than anything. He pushed himself up, slowly, slowly, checking in on his limbs and body bit by bit. The pain was mostly in his right leg and all over his skin. Burns, a broken bone. The fight was coming back to him in pieces. 

Bull heard a rustling on his blind side. He turned and saw Dorian, sitting in a chair, slightly unfocused in the way of the recently roused, but sharp enough.

He was still, his jaw clenched, his chest rising and falling with slow, heavy breaths.

He was furious.

Bull resisted the urge to lie back down and close his eyes, but Dorian didn’t deserve avoidance. “Hey,” he said.

Slowly, wordlessly, Dorian stood up and poured a glass of water from a nearby pitcher. He thrust it at Bull, who took it with a blank expression. Dorian sat back down, stick-stiff, tightly controlled.

Bull sipped the water, swirling it around in his mouth rather than swallowing, soothing the cracks in his tongue. “Did I at least get her?” he asked, his voice cracking.

“Oh yes. Florelia Praetextus is quite dead. She is buried beneath all the lyrium potions we had allotted for this excursion, an irreplaceable dagger, and the majority of our elfroot. Imagine a world where we had regrouped and strategized! How rich in resources we would be. Alas, here we are, stuck among all this lovely sand, waiting for the Inquisition to resupply us, so that we may travel home safely. A delightful little vacation, and a wonderful use of our dear Herald’s time.”

Dorian’s words should have been accompanied with a biting but lilting tone, almost musical in their mockery, but his delivery was nearly monotone. Dorian didn’t seem to have the energy. 

“I’m sorry,” said Bull, because he was, and because there was nothing else to say.

Dorian wound his trousers into his fists. “What,” he said, over pronouncing, the T a crisp hiss at the end of the word, “Were you  _ thinking. _ ”

“I wasn’t,” Bull said. He spoke calmly, because he’d fucked up, and what would come of that would come. There was no need to push or pull in any direction. 

It wasn’t the reaction Dorian wanted from him. He shot up to his feet. “Clearly! Do you understand what it was like to watch—” he said, but he tripped on his voice at the end, and then he stopped to swallow tears. 

Bull swallowed against the sinking in his chest. “I do,” he said.

“Then thank you ever so much for sharing the experience with the rest of us,” he hissed.

“Say what you got to say,” said Bull. “I get it.”

Dorian looked at him with his mouth agape, furious at Bull’s quiet acceptance. He started pacing the room, his hands in fists. He let out a choked, bitter laugh. “You know, I’d started to care for you. Silly of me, yes, I know, but it happens from time to time. And here we are again, Pavus, falling all over ourselves for someone who, apparently, doesn’t care for himself! How utterly exhausting.”

_ Bas _ things. Always Bull with his  _ bas _ things.

Dorian stared at Bull, expectant. Bull took another sip of his water.

“I got some dark shit in me,” said Bull, tone flattened, dull, detached. “Best to walk away.”

Dorian flinched. “What?” he asked.

Bull shrugged. “Qun helped. Kept me together. I don’t know what happens now, and I don’t want to tangle you up in it.”

Dorian crossed his arms over his chest. “Do you think me some Chantry sister? Some dainty, sheltered young thing who can’t fathom a roughly lived life?  _ Fasta vass _ , yes, I’ve noticed you’ve more scars than what are on your skin! You’re not the first person to ever lose control!”

Attachments. Stupid, passionate attachments. “The Qun—”

“Don’t speak to me of the blighted Qun!” shouted Dorian, loud enough to cause an echo.

Dorian sighed, deflated by his outburst. He fell into his chair and rubbed at his temple. “Has Cremisius ever shared gossip with you? About me?” he asked, staring at the floor, almost mumbling his words.

“Nothing specific,” said Bull. “Said he’d heard of you.”

“Mmm,” said Dorian, humming his acknowledgment distantly. “How charitable of him. I thought my reputation may have preceded me.” He pulled himself straight again, and twirled a hand in the air, announcing he had more to say. Dorian was always moving, always fidgeting. It was cute.  _ Attachment. _

“I have exposed corrupt magisters at their own parties, challenged oppressors to duels and won, been caught in the Orlesian style in the magisterium itself. I’ve no shame in any of that.” He let his hand drop. “I’ve also tended to carry on around drink.”

Bull had noticed. It wasn’t in his occasional overindulgences, because everyone had those nights. It was in how Bull himself was far more likely to get cut off before Dorian, how calculated and efficient he was with liquor, how often he was seen with a glass in his hand. Dorian didn’t drink desperately, he drank like it was necessary. 

The  _ ben-hassrath _ in Bull had memorized the tombstones in the Fade, etched with epithets half obscured by glowing clouds of sinister fade-stuff. “Dorian Pavus: Temptation.” He’d assumed demons at first, then thought it might be a bit more than just that.

Dorian focused on a spot just to the left of Bull, indicating him but not looking at him. “I cannot count the times I’ve woken soaked in my own urine. So there is that,” he said, sounding for all the world like they were discussing the weather. “There was also my cousin’s wedding, where I famously fell backwards and shattered a priceless artifact. I once heard a story about myself undressing outside a whorehouse. Perhaps I had been kicked out, but thought I’d been brought to a room? I can’t quite recall the moment. There are even more stories circulating Minrathous that—well.” He took a deep breath and blinked up at the ceiling. “I wish they kept to the ones where I’m a bit more dashing.”

Now, he focused back on Bull, almost accusingly. “I can recognize when I’ve gone too far and pull myself back, providing I have a reason to do so. There have been a few eras of my life where I had none. My time at Skyhold has not been one of them, in spite of losing Felix, in spite of making merriment in a tavern just above where Alexius rots in prison. If—if you, in particular, had not been there when my father—well.” He took a deep breath, collecting himself.

“I understand this whole  _ tal-vashoth _ business has been difficult for you. This is truly your preferred solution? To risk life and limb for the thrill of it?”

Bull would never be rid of his spy mind,  _ tal-vashoth _ or no, always searching, always analyzing. In that moment, he found his thoughts completely frozen, unable to process anything Dorian had said.

Dorian waited for a response. When he didn’t get one, he walked out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

_ Bas _ things.

Lavellan came to speak with him much later, calmer, more understanding.

“You made the call I wanted to make,” she said in a hushed tone, telling a secret. “I’m relieved, if I’m being honest.”

Bull surprised himself with his response. “Just returning the favor,” he said.

Bull did not see Dorian for the rest of his convalescence. It was for the best. Bull needed time to sort through himself, to untangle himself from the Qun.

Vasaad appeared in his dreams nearly every night. His roles were not particularly dramatic. He’d be a partner in some wild, improbable scenario, or be with the Chargers in a dream version of The Herald’s Rest. It felt like a haunting all the same. 

Cole had said something to Bull about Vasaad once, unbidden, in the cool, dry elfroot fields of the Dales. “There would have been another time, another time he didn’t listen.”

Bull and Vasaad had been a feedback loop, Vasaad needing him, Bull needing to be needed. 

There would have been another time.

Dorian wasn’t Vasaad.

—-

Bull was well enough to travel in a week, thanks to a properly-trained spirit healer appearing with their supplies. Lavellan disappeared to prepare for the trip home.

Bull found Dorian outside, throwing fire at training dummies made of mage-touched metal, honing his staffless spell work. Bull hovered slightly, unsure how to approach. He rarely felt nervous about his interactions with people, and he didn’t like it when it happened, his body feeling too large and his limbs hanging awkwardly.

Dorian noticed him first, his eyes slipping toward Bull, then immediately away. Bull took a step forward.

“Hey,” he said.

Dorian sighed heavily and turned around, smoke still swirling around his fingers. “Yes?” he asked, angrily biting the word.

“Got some things to say. You want to hear them?”

Dorian studied him for a moment, and then turned back toward the dummy. Lightning began to crack between his hands. “You are far from my first rendezvous,” he said lightly. “I’m very familiar with this script. Shall we skip the platitudes?” He expanded the ball between his hands. “I’m aware we had a wonderful time. I’m sure it’s about your journey, and not mine, but you wish me the best of luck. I won’t make a mess of things at Skyhold, if that’s your worry. I’ll be a perfect gentleman.”

He threw the ball. Electricity sparked through the dummy, lighting it up just briefly.

“That’s not what I want to say,” Bull said.

Dorian dropped his arms. He paused for a moment, then spun back toward Bull. “Fine,” he said.

“Let’s go somewhere private,” Bull said.

“Lead the way,” he said dryly.

Bull led them to a storeroom full of bags of grains and beans and dried herbs. Dorian leaned against a wall, his arms crossed. “You take me to the finest places in all of Thedas,” he said bitterly.

Bull sat down on a pile of canvas bags. On the other side of the room, he noticed a bag with a loose thread. He resisted the urge to focus on it, and looked right at Dorian. “Had a guy run off one time. We didn’t have a mage.”

“Well, obviously,” sniped Dorian.

“Not now.”

Dorian softened, just a little. He shifted his weight. “Right.”

Bull continued to make eye contact with Dorian. There would be no more avoidance. “There are no relationships under the Qun, but we were kinda—I don’t know. Something. We kept each other afloat through Seheron. It wasn’t the best idea, not the way we did it. I put everything I had into him, and in the end it wasn’t enough. He wasn’t a bad person or anything, just hard to find peace on Seheron. After I lost him, I didn’t have to figure anything out for myself. I just went to the priests, and did what they told me to do. That’s what I know. You give your problems to someone else, they deal with it.”

Dorian raised his eyebrows, surprised and mildly offended. “Have you spoken to Cremisius at all recently? He won’t lock you in a room and torture the feelings away, unfortunately, but he may be of service.”

“Yeah. I’ll talk to him, too,” said Bull. He sighed, somewhat frustrated. “Don’t know if any of this made sense. But thanks for trusting me. It helped to hear about your shit.”

“I’m so very glad the mistakes of my youth could have their purpose,” said Dorian. He seemed to catch himself in his bitterness, wincing a bit at his own tone. “After a few days of mana exhaustion and lyrium drag, I tend to be a bit dramatic. If it served you in some way, then I suppose I’m less ashamed of my little fit.”

Dorian was letting go of his barriers of rancor, bit by bit. Bull knew all the ways to soothe him further, make him pliable. He ignored those thoughts, and instead spoke his bare truth. “You said you care about me. I care about you, too. Hell, I care about you a lot. Never stop thinking about you. You’re funny, smart, strong. And absolutely fucking terrifying, which kind of works for me.”

Dorian laughed softly, but his expression remained reserved, distrustful. Bull could feel his heart reaching out to him, desperate in its need to be seen, to be understood.

“Can we salvage this?” asked Bull, feeling more vulnerable than he ever had.

Dorian’s suspicion didn’t melt, not all at once. He looked at Bull warily. “What are we salvaging?”

“We both said we have feelings for each other. Seems pretty obvious to me.”

Dorian looked at him with a dispassionate coldness that sank inside Bull and twisted him from the inside. “I’ve sat expectant on the whims of another before,” he said.

“You think I’m that kind of guy?” asked Bull gruffly.

Dorian opened his mouth with a slight intake of breath, ready to say whatever else he had stored. And then the last of his defenses seemed to leave him, and he focused on Bull, carefully reading his expression. His shoulders slumped, and he looked at the floor, collecting himself. He took a deep breath and looked back at Bull. “No,” he said. “You’re not.”

Bull remained calm and expectant. “So?” he asked.

Dorian bit his lip, and seemed to consider something within. Then, he pushed his shoulders back, regaining a bit of the haughty Tevinter mage he pretended to be. “I suppose we both have our histories,” he said.

Bull stood up and walked toward Dorian. “So we’re good,” he said.

Dorian took the cue, and stepped toward him. “I suppose,” he said quietly. Bull wrapped his arms around him, and Dorian tilted his face up for a kiss. It was a symbolic kiss, chaste and quick. They parted, but Bull kept his arms around Dorian, keeping him close, breathing in his scent. Dorian didn’t melt into him, not at first, but then he slowly rested his head against Bull’s chest.

“If you ever do anything that reckless again, I won’t pull you out,” he muttered into Bull’s skin. “I will stand back and watch, ideally with a snack.”

“I won’t,  _ kadan, _ ” said Bull. He’d whispered that word to Vasaad whenever they were out of earshot of the kith. Had used it with Krem, once, and once he explained the meaning, Krem made fun of him for being a sap with a wide grin on his face. Dorian didn’t ask about it. Bull thought he understood the heaviness without needing the context.

They stood like that for some time, skin to skin, honesty to honesty. Dorian pulled away, and Bull put his hands on his shoulders.

“Hey,” he said, searching Dorian’s eyes. “Are you my boyfriend?”

Dorian blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

“Just checking. We’re boyfriends, right?”

Dorian laughed,shocked. “You make it sound so juvenile. Boyfriends. As if we’re a pair of teenagers in a Circle! Do we wear matching jewelry? Hold hands in the mess hall? Shall we pass notes to each other in the war room when Leliana is not looking?”

“I don’t know. I never did that shit.”

“Well. Me neither, to be fair,” said Dorian softly. “Yes. We’re boyfriends.”

Bull grinned, and Dorian grinned with him. They kissed again, and left the room with their hands linked.

Two weeks later, they were back in Skyhold, stuck in one of Cullen’s endless war table meetings. Bull subtly nudged Dorian with his elbow, and passed a note into his hand. It said,  _ “Really want to bend you over the war table and cum in your ass.” _

He was informed that that wasn’t the kind of note they passed in the Circles.


End file.
